


The Gift of the Magpies

by Raaj



Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Gift Fic, Inspired by The Gift of the Magi - O. Henry, Parody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 04:24:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17155259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raaj/pseuds/Raaj
Summary: Edea sets out to get a gift for Ringabel, but she only has 187 pg.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.Gift fic for Koma.





	The Gift of the Magpies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kabukimono (Komatsu)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Komatsu/gifts).



One hundred and eighty-seven pg. That was all. She had put it aside–or rather made Agnès put it aside for her–from the change after each of her whirlwind shopping trips to make carefree purchases of clothing, shoes, and sweets. Edea counted it three times. One hundred and eighty-seven pg. She looked up at Agnès. “You’re…sure you didn’t misplace any of it?” she asked, because Agnès would never, ever take something that didn’t belong to her, but she was very good at losing herself, so she could very well have innocently lost other things.  
  
The very suggestion made Agnès puff up with indignation. “You are,” she said, with a calm but certain tone, “ _very efficient_  at spending your allowance,” which was the nicest way Edea had ever been accused of being a spendthrift. And then her friend started unrolling a small bit of paper–oh, she’d been keeping receipts.  
  
Edea quickly threw up her hands. “All right, all right! I believe you,” she said quickly, just so Agnès would not recount to her every last purchase she had made over the past four weeks. She was not proud of all of them. Unfortunately, return policies had yet to catch on in Luxendarc, and it was even harder to make returns when you were constantly jumping continents and even worlds.  
  
She looked down at the meager pile again. One hundred and eighty-seven pg. And the next day would be the eve of the Reunion Festival.  
  
There was nothing to do but fall back on the bed and groan. So Edea did it.  
  
“You don’t need to get Ringabel a gift, Edea,” Agnès told her. “You didn’t before.”  
  
Edea lifted her head just long enough to make sure Agnès saw her incredulous expression.  
  
“We weren’t dating before. And I felt bad getting ridiculously extravagant gifts from him then, too. Now it’ll be even worse and he’ll think I don’t care about him. Agnès, I’m going to end up being another Florem girlfriend.”  
  
The brunette frowned, looking puzzled. “You’re Eternian, Edea. Are you not?”  
  
She was. It had been a plot point. “I mean with the  _purse!_  He really wanted to get the purse for that one girl in Florem, but then it ended up being a hang-up for him because she didn’t appreciate him!”  
  
“And because she pressured him into getting it for her. I remember you telling him to go easy on the presents after the first Reunion Festival. Which he really should–this will be our third Reunion Festival in six months, now.” Agnès had to count the months on her fingers because the constant world-hopping was getting confusing for everyone. Their good friend, Tiz, refused to even look at calendars anymore. “I’d be surprised if Ringabel even has the funds for anything extravagant…”  
  
“It’s Ringabel, Agnès. If he didn’t have the pg, he’d sell his spleen just to make sure he could get me a gift.” Edea draped her arm over her face. Who knew having a boyfriend who always wanted to spoil you could be a problem?  
  
Then she gasped and bolted upright. “Agnès, I’ve got it!”  
  
The vestal’s face was black with terror. “You may not sell your spleen.”  
  
“No, no, different part.” Seeing that Agnès did not look reassured in the slightest, Edea quickly grabbed her hair and pulled its fluffy mass over her shoulder. “My hair. People buy hair to make wigs, I can get some quick pg for it!” And she had good hair, she knew, a radiant blond that often got compliments. She loved wearing bows, ribbons, and other accessories in her hair to call more attention to it.  
  
“Oh…that’s…much better, but it still seems a bit drastic,” Agnès said slowly. “Are you sure about this?”  
  
“Short hair is hardly the end of the world. I’ve been curious about trying it, actually! I can live with short hair. If Ringabel gets sulky because I didn’t give him a present, one of us will not live.”  
  
“…I suppose we should find who buys hair in the area, then.”  
  
“I already know the place,” Edea told Agnès, and raced to get dressed for the outside. She put on her three-week-old red coat. She put on her two-week-old black hat. She could not return either of them, but at least they were very fashionaaabluh. With the bright light still in her eyes, she quickly left Grandship and made her way into town.  
  
Where she stopped, the sign said: “Mrs. Sheeres. Hair Articles of all Kinds.”  
  
Up to the second floor Edea ran, and stopped to catch her breath, because Grandship had been moored somewhat far from town.  
  
Mrs. Sheeres, red-haired herself, middle-aged, easily flustered, looked at her.  
  
“Buy my hair,” Edea said.  
  
“Dear,” Mrs. Sheeres said after a pause, “I might, but take your hat off so I can look at it first.”  
  
Off came the hat. The hairdresser lifted Edea’s beautiful blond hair to feel its weight and look at it more closely.  
  
“A thousand pg,” said Mrs. Sheeres.  
  
“What?” Edea exclaimed. “Your wigs start at two thousand!”  
  
“That–every business must sell at a profit, dear,” Mrs. Sheeres stammered. “It will take my time and other materials besides your hair to make the wig. Besides, not all your hair is usable. What happened here?” She lifted a section of Edea’s hair that had been tucked under and carefully concealed for a week, long enough for Edea to have forgotten about it herself until now. It was chopped significantly shorter than all the other parts.  
  
“Mrgrgr…a firaga.”  
  
Mrs. Sheeres paused. “You’re, ah, very lucky to have any hair to sell, if it came that close.”  
  
“I have good reflexes,” Edea said. She looked at Mrs. Sheeres to see if she would make any sort of comment about the reflexes that had allowed the firaga to come so close in the first place.  
  
The older woman seemed to want to make some sort of comment: she opened her mouth. She then closed it. She didn’t seem to know what to make of Edea. She chose to stick to safety by simply repeating herself: “A thousand pg.”  
  
“Mrgr–fine. Give it to me quick.”  
  
The next two hours seemed to fly. She was going from one shop to another to find a gift for Ringabel. She had to remind herself several times that she was not shopping for herself.  
  
Finally, she found them. The messenger bags, which would be perfect for holding Ringabel’s journals for safekeeping. One was brown leather, very simply made. Its value was in its rich and pure material. Because it was so plain and simple, you knew that it was very valuable.  
  
But it was not very fashionaaabluh. Edea turned her eye to the other messenger bag. This one was mostly black, with colorful blue straps. The boldness of the blue dye might make it more prone to fading than the reliable brown, but Ringabel would love it more while it lasted. As soon as Edea saw the second one, she knew that she would get it for him. It was like him. Dramatic and flashy–Ringabel and the bag were both dramatic and flashy. She paid 1,187 pg for it. There was a lot of bartering and batting eyelashes to make the price conveniently match the amount of pg she had. And then Edea hurried home with the messenger bag and an empty pg-purse.  
  
Once Edea arrived at Grandship, she calmed down a little. She looked in a mirror, to see how short hair looked on her. Then she was no longer calm. She hurried to cover the sad marks of what Mrs. Sheeres had done. She certainly wasn’t considering herself responsible for any part of…that.  
  
Within five minutes, she concluded that she needed to recruit Agnès’ help. Within ten, they had both determined it would be more helpful for Agnès to hold a mirror behind Edea to help the blonde see what she was doing than have the vestal try to cut hair for the first time. Airy helped by simply being there and illuminating the room with her presence. The fairy was not inclined to help much more than that.  
  
Within an hour, Edea’s head looked a little better. A little. The three girls stood at the looking-glass for a long time. Edea was not feeling sold on short hair. The style wasn’t necessarily bad, but she’d expect it more on a younger boy.  
  
“Ringabel is going to die from shock when he sees me,” Edea said aloud. “And if he laughs, I’ll kill him.”  
  
Agnès took a deep breath. “Please don’t kill him. You were the one who wanted to get him a present.”  
  
“Well–yes! It’s not like I could buy anything with only 187 pg!”  
  
At seven, the Proprietress rang the dinner bell. Edea headed down, feeling as though she walked to the gallows.  
  
Ringabel was always late to dinner. Tiz, on the other hand, was already at their usual table in the Drunken Pig when the girls arrived. At the sound of their footsteps, he looked up, and the instant he saw Edea, his face changed color. He put his head in his hands and muttered something. He sounded torn between fervent prayer and choked laughter.  
  
“Do not start,” Edea said warningly. Then the tavern’s door opened again, and Ringabel stepped in.  
  
He stopped at the entrance, looking as though he dared not cross the threshold. He was as quiet as Alternis Dim. His eyes looked strangely at Edea, and there was an expression in them she could not understand. She found herself wishing he’d laugh. She would have been ready for that–with annoyance and rage, yes, but she would have been ready. When he went as quiet as Alternis, she didn’t know what to do.  
  
“Ringabel,” she cried, “It’s hair, for goodness’ sake. Don’t give me that look. I–I don’t care if you don’t like it, mrgrgr…! I don’t like it either, but it grows fast, and I only cut and sold it because I wanted to do something nice for you.” She was starting to regret that impulse.  
  
“You’ve cut off your hair?” Ringabel said slowly. He seemed to be laboring with that basic observation.  
  
“She did,” Tiz said. “Shouldn’t you tell her it looks lovely, Ringabel?” His frame shook with silent laughter, even after Agnès gave him a reproachful look.  
  
“Any hairstyle would look lovely on Edea,” Ringabel answered, and Edea might have found that more comforting if the man didn’t still sound like he had been walloped with a staff. Or if he didn’t follow that hollow statement up by looking around the room. “Your hair is gone?” he asked incredulously.  
  
“Don’t look for it, you blockhead,” Edea yelled. “It’s sold. And I sold it for you, and tomorrow’s the Reunion Festival, so can’t you at least pretend I don’t look awful?”  
  
The room fell silent after she finished. Tiz’s laughter had stopped, the boy looking guilty now. Ringabel seemed to snap to attention, finally realizing he needed to take action. He quickly crossed the distance between himself and Edea and put his arms around her comfortingly. From inside his coat, he took something wrapped in paper. He threw it on the table.  
  
“My angel,” he said soothingly, “Nothing like a little haircut could make you look any less radiant. But if you’ll open that, you might understand my surprise. And, er, Tiz’s amusement.”  
  
“You look fine, Edea,” Tiz quickly added. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. Just…open his gift.”  
  
After a glare at the brown-haired boy, Edea leaned forward to pick the gift off the table and open it. She gave a cry of joy; and then a sharp mrgrgr.  
  
Because there lay the combs–the combs Edea had seen in a store window barely two hours ago. Beautiful combs, with jewels that would perfectly complement her blond hair on a special occasion. She would have bought them, except they most certainly cost more than 1,187 pg, which she was not supposed to be spending on herself anyway, and she had already chopped off her hair. But Ringabel had gotten them for her. He knew her tastes so well.  
  
She held them to her heart without thinking, and then coughed with embarrassment to be making a display like this in front of Tiz and Agnès. Not to mention Ringabel himself. He was probably the most embarrassing witness here. “Well. Lucky that hair grows back, huh?”  
  
“Yes,” Agnès said with a knowing smile that didn’t help Edea’s blush. “Since you got your gift early, why not give Ringabel his now?”  
  
“Oh!” Edea jumped within Ringabel’s arms, then looked up at him excitedly. “You’ll love it. It’s a messenger bag, for your journals.”  
  
She would have gone on, but there was a strange look to Ringabel’s face again that stopped her. That, and Tiz had abruptly sucked in another breath and sounded like he was going to die of laughter.  
  
“No.” She said the single syllable strongly. “No. There is no way you sold your journals. They’re too important for that! They have your memories–and, wait, who would buy them, anyway?” With writings and drawings in every margin, they might prove worth a fortune if Ringabel became famous, but they were not going to simply be bought by a random shopkeep.  
  
“I didn’t sell them, angel,” Ringabel reassured her. “Tiz, please.”  
  
“He g-gave them to m-me,” Tiz said, certainly not stopping in his merriment. “S-so I’d loan him the pg. So he c-could buy the c-combs. F-for the h-hair you sold. To buy the m-mess–”  
  
Tiz couldn’t go on. He was laughing too much.  
  
“I’ll have them back as soon as I repay him,” Ringabel said, now sounding quite long-suffering. “Probably by the time your hair’s grown back, dearest. We agreed they seemed good enough security.”  
  
Agnès stared at the couple, aghast now that she understood the full situation. “Why are you two like this? Why can’t you budget? And, Tiz–” She turned to her friend. “Why would you lend him money? You’re enabling him!”  
  
“B-because,” Tiz said, getting back a little control, “He might go overboard with it, but the sentiment is still sweet, isn’t it?” He sighed, wiped a tear from his eye, and then shot up from his chair. “Ringabel. I’ll give you the journals back now. You still owe me, of course, but we’ll do it on honor. At least one of your presents should be enjoyed.”  
  
There was a story told, once, of two children who were not wise, and yet wise all the same, because they sold their most valuable possessions in order to buy a gift for the other. This is not that story. This is the story of two children who simply never learned to budget properly. And yet, even if they were foolish about it, even if they faltered at times, they still showed each other their love.  
  
And for their next Reunion Festival, they agreed to simply take a walk together and enjoy the fireworks. They were too broke for gifts.


End file.
